Port of Spain, May 26India exposed themselves to serious danger of losing the fourth one-dayer and thereby the series against the West Indies by posting only 217 for seven in 50 overs here at the Queen’s Park Oval today.
Ian Bradshaw of the West Indies celebrates after dismissing India’s Virender Sehwag during the fourth one-day international in Port of Spain on Friday. — Reuters
photo

Pietersen puts England on top
Birmingham, May 26
Kevin Pietersen struck his third consecutive century in England today to put the home side in the driver’s seat on the second day of the second Test against Sri Lanka at Edgbaston.

Chandigarh beat Bengal, enter semis
Panchkula, May 26
Continuing their winning streak, Chandigarh beat Bengal by four wickets to enter the semifinals of the ongoing Twenty-20 National Cricket Championship for Swift Cup at the Sector 3 cricket stadium here today.

Tough draw for Sania at
French Open
New Delhi, May 26
Sania Mirza was today handed a tough draw at the French Open as she runs into former champion and world No. 12 Anastasia Myskina in the first round of the women’s singles at the clay court Grand Slam starting Sunday.

Saina Nehwal storms into quarterfinals
New Delhi, May 26
Saina Nehwal scored a thumping win over Sachiyo Imai of Japan to storm into the quarterfinals of the Philippines Open badminton championship in Pasig City.

Houghton may get AIFF nod for coach
New Delhi, May 26
Fiftyeight-year-old Bob Houghton of England is likely to replace Syed Naeemuddin as the chief national coach with the All-India Football Federation expected to work out his financial terms and conditions in a couple of days.

Chess Olympiad
Indian men survive scare
Turin, May 26
Indian men’s team survived a scare before settling for a 2-2 draw with China in the fifth round of the 37th edition of the Chess Olympiad here.
Viswanathan Anand and National champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly survived a few anxious moments before settling for draws with Bu Xiangzhi and Ni Hua, respectively.

Olympic berth eludes Jung again
New Delhi, May 26
Samresh Jung’s hopes of securing an Olympic quota place were dashed once again after he finished 36th in 50m free pistol event at the ISSF World Cup in Munich, Germany.

Pinki claims golden double
Pune, May 26
Teenager Pinki Pramanik stole the show by completing her second consecutive golden double in 400m and 800 m while Anju Bobby George was again pushed to silver in women’s long jump in the third and final leg of the Asian Grand Prix here today.

Punjab boys take on Maharashtra today
Ludhiana, May 26
Hosts and last year’s losing finalists, Punjab boys will begin their campaign against Maharashtra in the 57th edition of the Dhanoa Junior National Basketball Championship, which starts here at the Guru Nanak Sports Complex here.

Varun Chopra breaks 109-year-old record
London, May 26Indian-origin cricketer Varun Chopra broke a 109-year-old record to become the youngest batsman scoring a century for Essex in their Second Division County Championship against Gloucestershire at Chelmsford.

Mohammad Kaif plays a shot during the fourth one-dayer against the West Indies in Port of Spain on Friday. — Reuters
photo

Port of Spain, May 26
India exposed themselves to serious danger of losing the fourth one-dayer and thereby the series against the West Indies by posting only 217 for seven in 50 overs here at the Queen’s Park Oval today.

While the ball darted about a bit in the morning and thereafter tended to stop, India made inexplicably heavy weather of playing the West Indian bowlers. Dwayne Bravo collected three wickets, two of them in one over. Marlon Samuels and Chris Gayle typically speared down fast off-breaks into the block hole to strangle the Indians’ strokeplay.

Only a 70-run fourth-wicket partnership between Yuvraj Singh and Mohammed Kaif — both of whom scored 50s — and some fireworks from Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the last five overs rescued the tourists from greater disaster.

As expected, Yuvraj returned to the side in place of Venugopal Rao, while the West Indies gave opportunities to Wavell Hinds, Dwayne Smith and Corey Collymore, who was surprisingly ignored for the previous matches.

Brian Lara won the toss for the first time in this series and asked India to be the guinea pig on a wicket with a tinge of grass.

The track demanded a wait-and-watch policy, but Virender Sehwag set off as if the Shatabdi was making a split-second stop at Najafgarh and he had to get on it. He flirted and missed outside the off stump, edged one to third man, subsequently produced a peach of an on-drive, before driving straight into the hands of extra cover.

The 19-year-old Suresh Raina has so far on this tour flattered to deceive. He was this time beaten by the bounce as he top-edged a slash to a solitary slip to present Ian Bradshaw with his second wicket.

But the greater disappointment was Dravid, who, despite there being two slips, tried to run a ball down to third man — a stroke of little purchase, as it would at best have fetched a single — only to see Ramnaresh Sarwan tumble to his right and not make a mistake.

At 47 for three in 15.3 overs, India were in a spot of bother. However, Yuvraj and Kaif went about their job fairly well to steady the ship.

Panchkula, May 26
Continuing their winning streak, Chandigarh beat Bengal by four wickets to enter the semifinals of the ongoing Twenty-20 National Cricket Championship for Swift Cup at the Sector 3 cricket stadium here today.

The other team, which notched the place in final four today, is Uttaranchal after beating Madhaya Pradesh by 11 runs. ITCF and Uttar Pradesh have already reached the semifinals.

Electing to bat first after winning the toss, Bengal mustered 121 runs at the loss of seven wickets in 20 overs. Abhishek Jhunjhunwala and Alokendu provided some respite to the team with their average innings of 28 off 25 and 21 off 27 balls, respectively. Sanjeev Goel remained unbeaten on 25 runs in 18 balls.

The wicket takers for Chandigarh were Rahat Elahi, Ravi Dhaliwal and Farman Ahmed, who claimed two wickets each.

The highlight of the winner’s innings was the unbeaten half-century by opener Abhinav Verma (51 n.o. off 54), which helped the team to make 122 in 18 overs. Saida Khan contributed valuable 21 runs in 13 balls. Bengal’s Abhijit showed excellent bowling attack to snare three wickets for just 14 runs.

In other match, batting first Uttaranchal set an easy target of 134 runs losing five wickets to Madhya Pradesh (MP). Opener Rajat Chawla accumulated 42 runs but the highest scorer for the team was Ravi Bisht, who put on 43 not out with the help of six boundaries and one six.

The MP team, which needed 30 runs in last two overs to win, was bundled out on 123 runs.

The third match, between Uttaranchal and Mumbai, was won by Uttaranchal by eight wickets. Batting first, Mumbai batsmen put up very poor show to finish on paltry 72 runs. Uttaranchal made 76 in just 11.3 overs at the loss of two wickets.

New Delhi, May 26
Sania Mirza was today handed a tough draw at the French Open as she runs into former champion and world No. 12 Anastasia Myskina in the first round of the women’s singles at the clay court Grand Slam starting Sunday.

The minor dip in rankings, currently 38 on the WTA Tour, seems to have played a crucial role in Sania not being seeded at Roland Garros.

The 19-year-old Indian returned to the courts this week at Istanbul after a three-week rest to recover from a wrist and lower-back injury.

Sania went out of the $ 200,000 event in Turkey in the singles second round but has reached the doubles semifinals with Alicia Molik of Australia.

The Hyderabadi said the wrist was still posing a problem. “I would say that physically I am at around 70 per cent. The pain in my wrist and back is much better but the wrist is still swelling up after playing a session,” Sania told PTI from Istanbul.

Meanwhile, Rohan Bopanna and Shikha Uberoi failed to qualify for the main draw. Bopanna went down to Michael Lammer of Switzerland 4-6, 6-7 in the first round of the qualifiers. Uberoi defeated Argentine Maria Jose Argeri 2-6, 6-2, 6-1 in the first round before going down to Galina Voskoboeva 5-7, 2-6 in the second.
— PTI

New Delhi, May 26
Saina Nehwal scored a thumping win over Sachiyo Imai of Japan to storm into the quarterfinals of the Philippines Open badminton championship in Pasig City.

The 16-year-old promising starlet, who had done a giant killing in the first round beating world No. 31 S. Mudukasan of Malaysia, took just 29 minutes to outplay Sachiyo 21-15, 21-14 and clinch a berth in the last-eight round.

The 86-ranked Saina, coached by All England champion Gopichand, now faces top seed and world No. 4 Xu Huaiwen of Germany in the quarters.

Saina is the lone Indian contender in singles draw as others, including Chetan Anand who lost to Roslin Hashim of Malaysia in the pre-quarterfinals, have already bowed out of four-star event.

Sayali Gokhale, who had sprang a surprise by scoring a major upset over world No. 29 Anna Rice of Canada in the first round, lost her plot as she went down 21-14, 21-13 to Ai Gota of Japan in 29 minutes in the next round.

India’s top male shuttler, world No. 24, Chetan Anand was completely off-colour while going down to lowly-ranked Roslin 21-9, 18-21, 21-15 in one hour.
— PTI

New Delhi, May 26
Fiftyeight-year-old Bob Houghton of England is likely to replace Syed Naeemuddin as the chief national coach with the All-India Football Federation expected to work out his financial terms and conditions in a couple of days.

The AIFF technical committee, headed by its senior vice-present P R Viswanathan of Tamilnadu, had recommended the names of Bob Houghton and Brian Kerr of Ireland after they appeared before the Technical Committee for interviews on May 24 and 25.

Out of the 11 coaches who responded to AIFF’s search for a suitable candidate for the national coach, four were finally shortlisted — Bob Houghton, Clemence Westerhoff of Holland, Ian Porterfield of England and Brian Kerr — though only Bob and Kerr turned up for interviews before the technical committee.

Mr Viswanathan said after the special general body meeting of the AIFF here today that while Bob Houghton did not make many demands, Kerr was very particular about having two others of his choice in his team. And while Houghton did not directly quote his expected salary, Kerr reportedly wanted over a crore of rupees. Viswanathan said both the coaches preferred the financial details to be settled through their agents and the AIFF was expected to complete the process by
tomorrow.

But the indication was that Houghton would get the job, as the AIFF would then be able to detail two Indian coaches to assist him, which would be beneficial to Indian soccer in the long run.

Houghton’s previous coaching assignments include China, Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia. AIFF secretary Alberto Colaco said, “We are looking for a good coach, and we don’t think age of the coach is a factor. He should know his football, be able to lift Indian soccer to a certain level, by giving the direction to strengthen the game at the grassroot level.”

Colaso said many high-profile coaches were willing to come to India though most of them had coached higher-ranked countries “as they know that India is a sub-continent and there is vast potential for the development of the game here”.

Turin, May 26
Indian men’s team survived a scare before settling for a 2-2 draw with China in the fifth round of the 37th edition of the Chess Olympiad here.

Viswanathan Anand and National champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly survived a few anxious moments before settling for draws with Bu Xiangzhi and Ni Hua, respectively.

On the second and third boards, Krishnan Sasikriand and P. Harikrishna also signed peace with Zhang Zhong and Wang Yue, respectively.

The draw proved costly for the second-seeded Indian men who were pushed to joint 11th spot. Eight rounds still remain in the biggest biennial chess spectacle.

Eves crush Turkey

Grandmaster Koneru Humpy and Women Grandmaster Swati Ghate guided Indian eves to an emphatic 2.5-0.5 victory over Turkey in the fifth round of the Chess Olympiad here.

The win helped the Indian team, seeded ninth, to move to joint fourth spot with eight rounds to come. The other Indian player D. Harika drew her third round game.

At the top of the tables top seed Russian dames suffered a shocking 1-2 defeat at the hands of Ukraine with Natalia Zhukova scoring the winner on board one for her team against top Russian player Alexandra Kosteniuk.

The two boards ended in draws after bitter fights giving the Ukrainians a well-deserved victory.

The other big upset of the day was recorded by Hungary who defeated defending champion China by a huge 2.5-0.5 margin.

For Hungary the latest addition in the chess arsenal Hoang Thang Trang, formerly from Vietnam, played out a draw with Zhao Xue on the top board while Ildiko Madl and Szidonia Vajda did the trick against Shen Yang and Hou Yifan, respectively.

Russian remained in sole lead despite the debacle inching to 12.5 points while Ukraine is now just half point behind the leaders. In third spot is Hungary on 11.5 points and seven teams including the USA, Romania and India are in close pursuit having 11 points each.
— PTI

Joao Costa of Portugal scored 667.2 (567+100.2) to win the gold medal after overtaking Russia’s Vladimir Isakov, who started off as the leader in the final carrying an advantage of five points from the qualifications.

Isakov had to be content with the silver with a score of 666.6 (572+94.6) while Zongliang Tan of China won the Bronze with a score of 661.8 (564+97.8). Kanstantin Lukashyk of Belarus who finished sixth won the Olympic Quota place.

Gundegnaa Otryad of Mongolia tallied 793.4 (590+203.4) to emerge the winner while Ying Chen of China was placed second with a score of 792.9 (587+205.9). Fengji Fei of China bagged the bronze with a score of 791.2 (589+202.2).
— PTI

Chandigarh, May 26
JCT Mills, Phagwara, edged out Cantt Sports Club, Jalandhar, 2-1 on the second day of the Nawab Sher Mohammed Khan Memorial Seven-a-Side Football Tournament at Malerkotla’s Dr Zakir Hussain Stadium last night.

Playing under floodlights, JCT initially went into arrears when Sunil Kumar found the net for the Jalandhar outfit but right winger Jaswinder Singh restored parity soon after. Sukhjinder Singh’s match winner at the fag end clinched the issue in favour of the mill men, who sailed into the semifinals.

In another match, Mahilpur Football Club defeated Punjab State Electricity Board, Hoshiarpur, 2-1. The scorers for the winners were Manjinder and Gurdeep Kumar while Sarabjeet Singh pulled one back for the powermen. The tournament, being organised by the Nawab Sher Mohammed Khan Sports and Welfare Club, Malerkotla, will conclude tomorrow.

Pune, May 26
Teenager Pinki Pramanik stole the show by completing her second consecutive golden double in 400m and 800 m while Anju Bobby George was again pushed to silver in women’s long jump in the third and final leg of the Asian Grand Prix here today.

Pinki won her third successive women’s 800m in the circuit with a personal best of 2 min 03.23 seconds and then flashed to the finish line by outclassing the field in the one-lap race in 52.92 seconds.

Mahan Singh was the other Indian athlete to make a big mark by winning the men’s high jump for a hat-trick of GP titles in the season, having already won the event in the first two legs at Bangkok (May 18) and Bangalore (May 22).

Mahan had a best leap of 7.73 metres, his season’s best, after having won the titles in the previous two Asian meets.

Anju, having come here to take part with a soft tissue injury of the heel, looked pretty flat while clearing 6.46 metres in her first jump, which was easily overtaken by Olga Rypakova of Kazakhstan with a clearance 6.49.

The latter virtually sewed up her third successive crown in the Asian GP by clearing 6.61m after Anju had done 6.39 in her second attempt.

Later, Anju cleared 6.38 m in her third jump, fouled her fourth and then had a poor 6.14 m off the fifth before limping off and forfeiting her last two jumps.

Olga, meanwhile, jumped to modest distances of 6.25 and 6.31 metres before deciding not to take her last two attempts as she had already won the title.

Kumar’s scorching pace in cloudy conditions pushed favourite Chen Minghu of China, the winner of the first two Asian legs, to second position with Kyrgyzstan’s Denis Bagrev.

Bagrev managed to edge out Minghu for the second spot in 8:15.44 sec in a very tight finish. The Chinese athlete finished third with a timing of 8:15.54 sec.

Javelin thrower Anil Singh (74.19 m) and high jumper Hari Shankar Roy provided India with two more golds. National record holder Roy cleared the bar of 2.18 metres and returned to his best after being down with a back injury. Anil’s compatriot Om Narayan grabbed the silver with a throw of 69.71m.
— PTI

Ludhiana, May 26
Hosts and last year’s losing finalists, Punjab boys will begin their campaign against Maharashtra in the 57th edition of the Dhanoa Junior National Basketball Championship, which starts here at the Guru Nanak Sports Complex here.

Giving details of the inaugural day’s fixtures, Mr Teja Singh Dhaliwal, honorary general secretary, Punjab Basketball Association, said 15 matches would be played on the first day of this eight-day meet. Punjab girls, who were placed seventh last year, would take on West Bengal on Saturday.

Though, nine matches are slated for the morning session, the championship will be formally inaugurated at 5 pm by Mr Davinder Bahri, member of the first Asian Games held in 1951 at New Delhi, Mr Dhaliwal added.

London, May 26
Indian-origin cricketer Varun Chopra broke a 109-year-old record to become the youngest batsman scoring a century for Essex in their Second Division County Championship against Gloucestershire at Chelmsford.

Chopra hit 106 from 162 balls yesterday to erase the record of Arthur Jervois Turner who had played for Army against Cambridge University, two months before the Great War.

Chopra, who turns 19 next month, was born and raised in Ilford and coached both by Joe Hussain, Nasser Hussain’s father and Graham Gooch.

Three years after his own precocious century in 1897, Turner was thrice wounded in the Boer War and praised for his heroism by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
— PTI

Sania-Molik enter semis
New Delhi: Sania Mirza and Alicia Molik registered a convincing win over Jelena Kostanic and Angelique Widjaja to advance to the doubles semifinals at the $ 200,000 WTA Tour event in Istanbul, Turkey.

Mirza-Molik drubbed the Croatian-Indonesian pair in straight sets 6-3, 6-3 in the quarterfinal of the Tier III event on Thursday.
The Indo-Australian pair next faces Yuliana Fedak of Ukraine and Eva Hrdinova of Czech Republic, who beat the Russian pair of Vasilisa Davydova and Olga Panova 6-2, 6-4 in their second round match.
— PTI

Lara wins awards
Port of Spain: Caribbean legend Brian Lara has swept the West Indies Cricket Awards, winning three top honours, including the coveted Cricketer of The Year title.

Lara was honoured with the awards, instituted by the West Indies Players’ Association, at a function held at the Chaguaramas Convention Centre in West Trinidad on Thursday.
The 37-year-old batting genius, who holds the world records for highest Test score of 400 and highest Test run aggregate, also bagged the WIPA Special and the Test Player Of The Year awards.
Ramnaresh Sarwan was rewarded for his good show in the domestic circuit and was awarded the First-class Player Of The Year title.
— PTI

Gavaskar’s lecture
Port of Spain: Sunil Gavaskar will deliver the prestigious third Sonny Ramadhin Distinguished Cricket Lecture at the University of the West Indies on May 31. The Faculty of Social Sciences of the varsity hosts the forum.

Inaugurated in April, 2004, the lecture series was introduced in the honour of legendary West Indian cricketer Sonny Ramadhin, hailing from Central Trinidad. Ramadhin has been living in England for the last 40 years.
— PTI